Amazing. Here in the Pacific Northwest, for a long time the longest train I ever way was 132 cars. Then one time I saw a 230 car train and it just amazed me how long it was (because I could almost the entire thing at once along the highway).
Dispatcher: "UP 7454 west, You got a medium clear, you're goin in the siding!!" Engineer: "Dispatcher, UP 7454 west, we're gonna need a bigger siding!"..... here's a better one. "UP Detector, milepost 412.6, hot box detector, axle 3,278, DEFECT, DEFECT, stop your train, stop your train!" It's never axle 12 or 7. Lol. PS.... I'm a retired conductor
That was nice. I have read that once UP makes the sunset route double track, that we will see more n more of the super long intermodal trains. I can't wait!!!!
3.4miles freight train? Longest than Narita International Airport's A runway and Kansai International Airport's B runway! And longest than 1 World Trade Center and Willis Tower and Taipei 101!!
It ran from DIT in Dallas TX to the LA Basin, 4 sets of 3 engines, spaced 6000 ft apart, all empty containers returning to the port. It was a test run.
And those were the days of manned helper units. When we had to wait for one of them, you knew that they wouldn't clear anywhere so from the time they left Bakersfield, they were going non-stop and you? You were in the hole for hours
SP was a special breed of railroad. I worked for them in the 1980s and part of the 90s until the UP takeover, first in signal, then as conductor in that area. We ran some amazing power back then. The oil can trains coming from bakerspatch were heaviest. Coming down the mountain from mojave into Rosamond and Lancaster was fun on a 14,000 ton 12,000 foot monster at 60 mph. The good old days
@tmartin27069 I apologize. I made a significant typo on my last reply. Train weight, even with loaded cars of the same commodity, can vary depending on how heavily individual cars can be loaded. However, to "Roughly" estimate a unit train weight of 120 cars, take the number of cars (120) and multiply by 130. That will give you the approximate weight of the train. Again, this is approximate.
Was this a train of empty containers? I would expect a full train to be going east, empty going west to send all these containers back to the Chi-coms for refilling.
Close to 15.5 thousand tons, cool train but I'm guessing UP had all the DPU's because of the length. UP's unit coal trains are probably about the same weight with 120 full hoppers powered with 3 engines. How much would a fully loaded coal train of this length weigh?
There is no one in the world that would try to duplicate this manifest in any scale sized train set just imagine how many train scale cars one would have to buy and how immense the layout would have to be. As a kid in the 1980's I always felt that no matter how close scale sets reminisce the real trains in America there is no way to actually capture manifests like this at least I have never seen before in any scale.
@Twurk when it might be "cool" to see. The rr is only running trains like that for one reason. To use less crews. Longer trains mean less trains and fewer crew. There is always a reason behind all that they do.
Of course there is a reason behind what they do. That is what they are paid to do....come up with ways to move freight efficiently so as to keep it off the highway.
Thank you for your reply. Now my understanding is that to make a 3 mile-long train, they make three 1 mile-trains with engines on the yard one by one and then put together them on the main line. Is it correct?
what speed did this train run up to ? 112 km/h (70 m/h) ? Is there any reason why the train was a hand full of containers shy of been a full double stack train ?
@@stretchlimo7275 I read recently that modern locomotives can move 1 ton of freight at least 500 miles on 1 gallon of diesel fuel. There isn't a trucking solution that can get anywhere close to that number. A truck's only advantage is that is can reach locations not served by rail.
Maybe instead run a train that is a pain in the ass to run let's make them shorter and more of them. Jobs are more important than a 3 mile long train. Don't kid yourself when they are doing it efficient. They are doing it for less man hours.
